CAL Wiki:Manual of style
The Manual of Style (often abbreviated MOS) is a style guide for all articles and official documents in the . It establishes a house style, to help editors produce articles with consistent, clear, and precise language, layout, and formatting. The goal is to make the encyclopedia easier and more intuitive to use. Consistency in style and formatting promotes clarity and cohesion. Article titles An article title is a convenient label for the article, which distinguishes it from other articles. Choice of title Article titles are based on how the books in either The Divine Dungeon or The Completionist Chronicles ''series and other primary sources refer to the article's subject. A good title meets the following five criteria, and if these criteria are in conflict, they need to be balanced against one another. #'Recognizability': The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with the subject area will recognize. #'Naturalness': The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English. #'Precision': The title is sufficiently precise to unambiguously identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. #'Conciseness': The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. #'Consistency': The title is consistent with the pattern of similar article's titles. We prefer the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in the sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural. Although original or scientific names may sound logical for article titles, the term or name most typically and frequently used in reliable sources is generally preferred. It also helps to avoid spoilers. There is often more than one appropriate title for an article. In that case, editors choose the best title by consensus based on the considerations that this page explains. should be created to articles that may reasonably be searched for or linked to under two or more names (such as different spellings or former names). It is not always possible to use the exact title that may be desired for an article, as that title may have other meanings, and therefore may have been already used for other articles. According to the above-mentioned precision criterion, when a more detailed title is necessary to distinguish an article topic from another, use only as much additional detail as necessary, placed in parentheses behind the title. For example, it would be appropriate to title an article ''Ritualist (class), as the addition of (class) is precise enough to distinguish the class from other uses of the term Ritualist. Title format The following points are used in deciding on questions not covered by the five principles; consistency on these helps avoid duplicate articles: *Use "sentence case", not "title case"; that is, the initial letter of a title is capitalized, but otherwise, capital letters are used only where they would be used in a normal sentence. For example, Grace's mother, not Grace's Mother. *Use the singular form: Article titles are generally singular in form. For example, dark elf, not dark elves. *Do not use A, An, or The as the first word. For example, Phoenix Kingdom, not The Phoenix Kingdom, or ritualist, not A Ritualist. The exception is that these words are by convention an inseparable part of a name, like The Ritualist or it is part of the title of a work. *Use names without ranks for characters: Articles about characters should avoid the title or rank, unless the character is known only by the title. For example, Marie, not Queen Marie. Text formatting Spelling In English there is a national variety of the language, e.g. American English vs. British English. These varieties differ in many ways, including vocabulary (elevator vs. lift), spelling (center vs. centre), date formatting ("April 13" vs. "13 April"), and occasionally grammar. Check out Comparison of American and British English article on Wikipedia to determine the differences between the varieties. In order to increase the consistency, it is decided that American spelling should be used on all canon encyclopedia articles in the wiki, on any templates, on all official projects and blog posts. This is to reflect the American origin of both series. Regional variations in spelling may be used in all other contexts in the wiki, such as comments, talk pages, user pages, blog posts and fanon. Capital letters Unnecessary capitalization should be avoided. For example, use anthracite rather than Anthracite . This is sometimes referred to as the "down style". Capitalization should be reserved for proper names only. The following points are noteworthy: *'Capitalization of "The"': Generally do not capitalize the in the middle of a sentence. For example, she was from the Phoenix Kingdom (not from The Phoenix Kingdom). However there are some conventional exceptions, including most titles of artistic works. *'Titles': In generic use, apply lower case for words such as emperor, queen and president. For example, Maria was the princess of the Phoenix Kingdom. **In parts of a person's title, begin such words with a capital letter, like King Henry, not king Henry. **Standard or commonly used names of an office are treated as proper nouns (The Guild Master is Frank). **Royal styles are capitalized (Her Majesty; His Highness); exceptions may apply for particular offices. *'Calendar items': Months, days of the week, and holidays start with a capital letter (June and Monday) and seasons are in lower case (her last summer; the winter solstice), except in personifications or in proper names for periods or events (Old Man Winter). *'Animals, plants, and other organisms': Any flora and fauna are written in lower case in article prose (cats) and in sentence case at the start of article titles, sentences, headings and other places where the first letter of the first word is capitalized. They are additionally capitalized where they contain proper names, e.g. Dani's cat, Snowball. *'Astronomical bodies': When used generally, the words sun, earth, and moon do not take capitals. For example, The moon was looming behind them. Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper nouns, and therefore capitalized. *'Locations': Generic words for institutions (academy, college, guild, dungeon) and political or geographical units (cities, towns, and countries) do not take capitals. For example, everyone wanted a piece of the newly discovered dungeon. Names of institutions and political or geographical units are proper nouns and require capitals, like Dale founded the Phantom Academy in Mountaindale. Italics *Use italics for the titles of works of literature and art, such as books, pamphlets, films (including short films), television series, music albums, and paintings e.g. The Divine Dungeon. The titles of articles, chapters, songs, television episodes, and other short works are not italicized. *Italics may be used sparingly to emphasize words in sentences (whereas boldface is normally not used for this purpose). Generally, the more highlighting in an article, the less its effectiveness. Use italics when introducing or distinguishing among terms. Dates and time *As of the creation of , Dakota Krout has not made use of logging dates and times in either series. Until such time that Dakota adds dates, there's not set-in-stone policy on this subject. Numbers *In general, write whole numbers one through nine as words, write other numbers that take two words or fewer to say as either numerals or words, and write all other numbers as numerals: 1/5 or one fifth, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred, but 3.75, 544, 21 million). This applies to both ordinal and cardinal numbers. *Use a comma to delimit numbers with four or more digits to the left of the decimal point: 12,345 and 1,000. Writing style Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best. Avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording. Grammar tense In in-universe articles the past tense must be used on any event articles, articles describing entities that are deceased or no longer exist, or sections of any in-universe article detailing past events. For example, Dale pushed Tim back into the dungeon to be devoured by mushrooms. Present tense must only be used on any location, creature, and character article, where this does not conflict with the other guideline. The current "in-universe time" in the wiki is generally considered to be fixed at the end of the last published book which is furthest down the timeline. Formality and neutrality Formal use of language is mandatory on all articles. For example, "Tom is quite strong for being a barbarian from the north", not "Tom is a brute". *'Contractions': Uncontracted forms such as do not or it is are the default in encyclopedic style; don't and it's are too informal. But contractions should not be expanded mechanically. Sometimes rewriting the sentence as a whole is preferable; occasionally contractions provide the best solution anyway. *'Contested vocabulary': Avoid such phrases as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone. Similarly, phrases such as of course, naturally, obviously, clearly, and actually make presumptions about readers' knowledge, and call into question the reason for including the information in the first place. Do not tell readers that something is ironic, surprising, unexpected, amusing, coincidental, etc. Simply state the sourced facts and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. *'Speculation': Speculation is not allowed to be added to any article in the wiki. Perspectives Articles in the wiki are one of two types: *In-universe: Article should be written as if the universe of The Divine Dungeon and The Completionist Chronicles series were the real world. Chapters and books should not be referred to in a sentence, and characters should not be treated as fictional constructs. These articles include all character, location, object, event etc. articles – all articles not in the real world category. *Real world: Article should be written from "our" perspective. This includes all behind the scenes, books, chapters and other articles. See also *Layout guide External links *Wikipedia's Manual of Style Category:Policy